


Only One Safe

by Annide



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [22]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blackouts, F/F, Light Angst, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26482900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annide/pseuds/Annide
Summary: When blackouts spread across the city, Malcolm's friends lock him up to make sure he won't get himself into trouble. He worries about everyone else.
Relationships: Dani Powell/Ainsley Whitly, Malcolm Bright & Ainsley Whitly
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1667122
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Only One Safe

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Bad Things Happen Bingo: Locked Up and Left Behind
> 
> Sequel to [Hold You Close](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25025710) though it's not necessary to read it to follow this one.

They hadn’t meant to lock him into Gil’s office and leave him there, alone. Or maybe they had. He wouldn’t put it past either of them to do this just so they could be sure he’d stay safe. Somewhere out of the way where he couldn’t get himself into some kind of dangerous situation. Malcolm couldn’t blame them. After all, he had gotten hurt a lot since starting to work with them. He just wished he had his phone with him. He’d left it in the conference room and now he had no way to find out anything. He didn’t know how it was going, or if his family was safe. What if someone tried to reach him?

Blackouts were happening all over the city. No one knew what caused them yet, but it wasn’t their job to find out. The entire NYPD was out there to try to keep things in order, help people who needed them and stop those who were taking advantage of the situation. The latter was the reason Malcolm had been locked in here. Right before the team left, Gil and Dani had been trying to convince him to go home and stay there. They didn’t need his expertise here, and there wasn’t much he could do out there, except get himself hurt according to JT.

He heard a buzzing, like the vibration of a phone. He wondered for a second whether his own might actually have been in his pocket all this time. The buzzing was heard again and when his pockets came out empty, he started looking around. He found Dani’s phone in the cracks of the couch. It must’ve fallen there earlier. They all left in such a hurry, she might not have had time to notice.

**You ok?**

**Is Mal with you?**

Malcolm didn’t know his sister had Dani’s number. He rarely ever saw them together, but it was clear they’d met before he came back to New York. Ainsley always had this strange expression on her face when he mentioned Dani too. He could never figure out what it was about. Why would they hide their friendship from him? There had to be more to this.

**No one answers, I’m worried**

He couldn’t answer her because he was locked in this office, without his phone, getting bored out of his mind. And he was holding Dani’s phone, so neither could she. He couldn’t let Ainsley worry though, he didn’t want her to try and get news about them some other, riskier way.

**It’s Malcolm. I don’t have my phone with me. Looks like Dani dropped hers though.**

**She ok?**

**I don’t know. They locked me in Gil’s office and left to deal with things. I wish I could help.**

**Happy you’re safe. Stay that way**

**Same to you.**

**Always ;)**

* * *

Ainsley was going out of her mind alone in her apartment. She knew it was dangerous out there, and Dani was with the rest of the team, doing her job to put an end to this situation as fast as possible and keep the city safe. But now that Ainsley knew for a fact her brother was safe, and where she didn’t need to worry about him, and her mother’s incessant texts and phone calls assured her she was just as safe, she couldn’t stop thinking about Dani.

They’d been dating for a few weeks. It was going well too. Much better than any other relationship Ainsley had before for sure. They’d been keeping it secret, unsure how to share the news with everyone else. They were particularly nervous about telling Malcolm, or worse him somehow figuring it out on his own and being mad they tried to hide it from him. They didn’t know how he’d feel about his little sister dating his best friend.

She thought about asking her brother to text Gil and ask about Dani, but he was probably already trying to think of a reason why she would’ve texted Dani earlier and she didn’t want to make him even more suspicious. She settled on texting Gil herself, but she simply asked if he and the team were alright. It was vague enough that he probably wouldn’t think much of it, despite how rarely she texted him.

**We’re good. Busy. Your brother’s safe. Dani locked him in my office before we left.**

Ainsley would have to remember to thank her for that later, she had plenty of ideas on how to do that too. Maybe something similar to how she got scoops from an “inside source at the NYPD”. Honestly, at this point, either her brother didn’t watch her reports or he must’ve noticed something.

The sun was almost done setting and she knew things would only be getting worse from here on out. She sat on her couch, trying to distract herself by watching tv, until the blackouts hit here too. She tried reading a book in the candlelight, but she couldn’t focus on anything. She knew Dani was amazing and could take care of herself just fine, but she was still worried. What if something happened to her and she couldn’t call for help because she didn’t have her phone on her?

She needed to go out there, and get Dani’s phone back to her. Hopefully before Malcolm got bored enough to look through her camera roll. And while at it, she might as well get some images for a report about the situation. It would make a great piece. So she grabbed a bag with supplies and headed out.

* * *

Malcolm was bored. The precinct was empty. Gil answered his first call, told him he needed to stay safely where he was and then ignored every subsequent one. Ainsley had also stopped replying to his texts. There was nothing to do in here. Everyone else was out there, doing their part, helping people, just doing something in the middle of the action. And he’d been left behind to sit around and do nothing. Why wouldn’t they let him help?

He’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t do this, but he was going stir-crazy here. He needed a distraction. Dani didn’t have any games on her phone. Not that he would ever risk running the battery dead by playing anything. He decided to swipe through her gallery, curious what kind of photos his best friend might take. He always thought what people found important enough to photograph told something about them.

The first one looked strangely like the view from Ainsley’s apartment. And that was a candid picture of Ainsley between two segments at a crime scene they all worked. There was also one of the three of them during a movie night they forced on him. Another of Ainsley sleeping on her couch, her broken leg from a few weeks ago sticking out of the covers. And a selfie. A kissing selfie. Of Dani and Ainsley. How could he have been so blind that he didn’t realise his best friend was dating his sister?

He wanted to keep looking through the pictures, to try to figure out how long this had been going on, at least a few weeks from the looks of it, but he was distracted by a loud noise. Something heavy had fallen outside. He looked through the blinds to see a group of people walking around with flashlights. They seemed to be seizing the opportunity of an empty precinct during a blackout to come looking for something. They were whispering so Malcolm couldn’t hear what they were saying, and therefore figure out what they were after. But one thing was certain, they didn’t mind a bit of destruction while they were at it.

There was nothing he could do to stop them. He’d tried the door several times already and didn’t find a way to unlock it. He had no way out of this room. Gil and Dani would probably think that was the point. As long as he was locked in here, he couldn’t do anything stupid like go out there and take on a whole group of people by himself. Guess they’d been right to leave him behind. As long as no one set the place on fire, he was safest where he was.

It wasn’t everyone’s case however. As he watched silently, hidden by the blinds, he saw a new person coming in. One who wasn’t quite as prepared as the others and was using her phone for light. He couldn’t identify her until everyone else noticed her too. They turned their flashlights toward her, clearly alarmed by the arrival of someone who wasn’t part of their group.

Ainsley. His little sister was here, alone, for who knew what reason, and he was locked in Gil’s office, unable to help.

* * *

“Why does my caller ID says you’re calling me?” JT said, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“It’s Bright. I accidentally left my phone in Gil’s office.”

“And why is he using it? His died or something?”

“He left it in the conference room.” Gil chimed in. “You can ignore him. He’s probably bored and wants us to let him out.”

“People are vandalising buildings and setting fires all over the city. He’s alone and locked in, I’m not taking any chances.”

Dani’s heart was beating faster. She didn’t know why she was so nervous. Even if Malcolm had seen her photos, he probably had gotten bored enough to by now, he wouldn’t say anything to JT. He was probably just calling with a pretext to talk to her about it, maybe tease her a little, ask why they didn’t tell him. That’s what she expected, light-hearted, slightly annoying questions about her relationship.

“Malcolm says there are people causing trouble at the precinct. He’s fine, they don’t know he’s locked in the office. But his sister is out there.”

“What’s Ainsley doing at the precinct?” Dani’s heart dropped. She tried to hide the panic in her voice and made sure to sound a normal amount of concerned for a reporter they knew in passing and that happened to be her best friend’s sister, nothing more. She wasn’t sure she completely succeeded.

“How would I know? She shares genes with Bright. Doing stupidly reckless things must run in the family.”

JT wasn’t completely wrong. Gil agreed to let the two of them go back there and deal with the situation, then bring them both Whitlys to their mother’s house in the hopes that Jessica could keep them there until it was safe.

As they drove back, as fast as they could, worry seeped into Dani’s mind. What if these people did something to Ainsley? She was a very capable woman, but still unarmed against a whole group. Dani couldn’t watch her get hurt again. As much as taking care of her when she had her leg broken had brought them closer and led to the relationship they now had, Dani had no desire to go through that again. She wouldn’t feel at ease until she could hold Ainsley safely in her arms.

* * *

When she arrived at the precinct, Ainsley wasn’t all that surprised to find people roaming around the place with flashlights. There were many reasons to come here at a time like this. Some good, like seeking help or shelter, some bad, like stealing weapons. She couldn’t believe they wouldn’t have left at least one officer here, especially with how easy breaking in seemed to be. The group of strangers had left the door unlocked being them so Ainsley didn’t have to do anything. When they noticed her and pointed their flashlights in her direction, they looked worried, like they were afraid she might be a cop. She couldn’t see any weapons on them and they certainly weren’t pointing a gun at her or anything. But they did look angry to be interrupted.

“I’m not cop, and I can’t see your faces. Please, don’t hurt me.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Just checking on my girlfriend. She’s not answering her phone and I thought there might be someone here who could tell me something.” Ainsley had learned that keeping your story as close to the truth as possible was always the best way to go. It made it easier to keep to your story.

“So, your girlfriend works here? Is she a cop?”

One of them didn’t wait for her answer and came closer. Ainsley used her pepper spray. She managed to get two of them with it. Her brother had thought her enough self defense tricks that she could take out a third one. But then the other two ganged up on her, one of them distracted her and allowed the other to punch her. She momentarily lost her focus, long enough for them to grab her and handcuff her to a desk, with a pair of handcuffs they’d found lying around. Then they disappeared to finish what they were doing and left.

She heard a tap on a window. She turned to see her brother waving at her from Gil’s office. She smiled. It was kind of funny how they both ended up stuck there. He asked if she was okay and she nodded. Her face was throbbing, but it could’ve been so much worse. And she did manage to take out three people on her own, she was pretty proud of that.

“Ains! What happened?”

Dani ran over to her, cupping her face in her hands, her eyes filled with concerned.

“I’m fine, it was nothing.”

“You’re bleeding!”

“I got punched, it’s not a big deal.”

“See, what did I tell you? Just like her brother. But I guess if you had to date one of the Whitlys, at least you picked the prettiest, nicest one.” JT walked right past them to let Malcolm out of the office.

“JT knows?” Ainsley and Malcolm said together.

“I’ve known all along. Clearly, Bright isn’t as good a profiler as he thinks because you two aren’t the most subtle people.”

“Maybe I’m just a trusting person who didn’t think my sister and my best friend would hide something so big from me.” Malcolm tried to defend himself.

“You have trust issues.” They all said.

“Fine. But, you know, it’s fun for once being the sibling who knows a secret our mother would love to hear about. I can’t believe you always ruin that feeling by ratting me out.”

“I don’t always rat you out.”

“Hey, Ains, let it go. He’s saying he won’t say anything.” Dani said. “Which is good, because we’re driving you over to her house and you both have to stay there until it’s safe. And since neither of you seems to have enough judgement to know when that is, I will come to tell you personally. Alright?”

Ainsley and Malcolm tried to protest, but the look she gave them both convinced them to agree. Ainsley buried herself in Dani’s arms as soon as she’d freed her, happy to know she was safe.

“You have to take your phone with you this time, so you can text me regularly to tell me you’re fine.”

“Did you come all the way here, risking your life, just to try to get my phone to me?”

“I was worried.”

They kissed to the sound of Malcolm unsuccessfully trying to convince JT to let him go with them. Ainsley couldn’t imagine what it was like to work with her brother every day, but she was always happy to welcome Dani to her place after a long day and make her forget all about the murders and various crimes that filled both of their lives. Together they were always safe.


End file.
